Evaluation of antianxiety and antidepressant activity of aqueous extract of Cynodon dactylon (Doob grass) in Swiss albino mice

Objective: Anxiety and depression are common psychiatric conditions that cause changes in the lifestyle of humans and impose huge costs for the treatment to the patients. The present study was carried out to find antianxiety and antidepressant activity of aqueous extract of Cynodon dactylon (AECD) in mice. Methods: AECD was prepared by maceration method. The yield was 5% w/w. The AECD was screened for antianxiety activity by elevated plus maze (EPM) and light and dark box and for antidepressant activity by forced swim test (FST) and tail suspension test (TST) in mice. For each model, animals were divided in four groups of six animals. Group I served as control and received gum acacia aqueous suspension 10 ml/kg. Groups II and III served as test group and received AECD 200 and 400 mg/kg, respectively. Group IV served as standard group and received diazepam 1 mg/kg for antianxiety activity and fluoxetine (20 mg/kg) for antidepressant activity. All drugs were administered by gavage. Results: AECD 200 and 400 mg/kg showed significant (P 0.05) with that of fluoxetine in both the models. Conclusion: Results of our study su